When the Leaves Fell
by Finny Is Dapper
Summary: Marco's senior year of high school has just started, and things seem to be going well for him at first. Unfortunately, Marco is faced with a task he's never dealt with before: Befriending Jean Kirstein, a new student from Germany. With a little bribing, Marco accepts the challenge. However, nothing ever goes as planned.


September rolled around. With September came the start of the new school year. It started the day after Labor Day to be exact. I was a bit excited, seeing as it marked the beginning of my senior year. Believe it or not, twelve years around the same people gets stale after a while. There were some people that even I had started to lose my patience with. That says a lot. All of my friends say that my fuse is nonexistent. I walked into the auditorium. The schedule on the first day was always the same. Class meeting, assembly, homeroom, and then shortened schedule. I didn't mind it. Routines were fine by me, to be honest. I was never a huge fan of sudden change. It's not that I was afraid of it. It just always made me feel out of the loop and confused. I looked around, trying to spot my friends. Much to my delight, they were clustered around the back. That's the way it was every year. I ran over to them, a huge grin on my face. Sasha was the first to notice me. She waved enthusiastically. "Marco! I thought you would never come!" she cried, running over and pulling me into a tight hug. It was kind of her thing. I chuckled, pushing her away slightly. "Sorry I'm late. I slept in pretty late. I'm just so used to staying up until four in the morning and sleeping past noon, you know?" I explained. Sasha and I walked back over to the group. Sasha took her normal spot next to Connie. I took the other seat next to Connie. Behind us were Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie. "Marco, you play innocent, but I know you were up makin' out with your girlfriend," Reiner commented. I laughed. "Dang, Reiner, you saw right through my lie," I joked. That was Reiner's thing. He always picked on my relationship with Mina. Speaking of, I hadn't seen her at school yet. I was a little worried that she was sleeping through her morning. "What time is it anyway?" I asked. Bertholdt looked at his watch and then at me. "8:23. There's only four more minutes until the class meeting starts," he commented. I took my phone out of my bag and sent Mina a text asking where she was. "Hopefully she isn't still asleep…" I muttered. Connie snickered. "Damn, Marco, stop trying to be the better boyfriend!" he yelled, playfully punching me in the arm. I rolled my eyes, a small grin on my face. "Connie, I'm just raising the bar. Besides, Sasha sticks around you, so what's the big deal?" I asked. "Point proven, I guess," Connie replied. "Marco, don't be such a worrywart!" Mina said behind me. I whipped my head around to see her walking over, Mylius by her side. Sometimes that concerned me. She and Mylius were close. Very close. However, I had enough faith in Mina to just shake that off. Mylius waved good-bye, walking over to Thomas and Samuel. Mina took her seat next to me. "Is that what took you so long?" I asked, pointing to Mylius. She giggled. "I ran into him while walking here. We decided to compare schedules," she explained. "That reminds me. What classes do you have this trimester?" Sasha asked. I dug my schedule out of my bag and looked at it. "Business Math, Government, AP English, Anatomy and Physiology, and Musical Theatre," I read off. Sasha squealed. "That's my schedule to a tee!" "Same here," Annie said. "Mine's the same save for my math class," Bertholdt stated. "We have math together," Connie said. "I might have Government with you," Reiner muttered. "All we have is Musical Theatre," Mina whined. I chuckled. "I guess you all compared schedules already," I commented. That figured. Sometimes I felt distant from them if I was going to be completely honest. Within our clique was smaller cliques. Connie and Sasha were pretty much inseparable. Bertholdt, Reiner, and Annie had been friends since before elementary school. While I did have Mina, she wasn't a common member of our group. Usually she hung out with Mylius. It made sense. The two of them had been close friends for a long time. Come to think of it, I sort of swooped in and stole Mina from their circle. I had a crush on her for most of Junior year, so naturally I started to date her shortly before Summer Vacation. We hit it off pretty well. However, something about it always felt awkward to me. I wanted it for a good nine months, yet when I finally had it...it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Mina is a very nice and pretty girl, and I like her spunk. I guess I just wasn't thinking with my head when I asked her out. Not to mention Mylius often stared at us with an expression that I could never quite place. I'm not saying I wanted to break up with her. I just have a habit of being overzealous with certain things. And jumping into that relationship was one of them. Definitely something that I had to work on. I just hoped my relationship with Mina wouldn't be too negatively affected. The class meeting finally started. It was just the usual talk about what we should expect this year and the general expectations. I had the okay to leave a few minutes early to head to the large gym for the all school assembly. I was elected to be student body president during class elections last year, so I had to speak at all the school events. I don't even know what the student body was thinking when they elected me. I ran for the fun of it. At least it guaranteed me a full ride scholarship to college. I couldn't argue against that. I was just a bit nervous to speak at my first assembly. I seriously had to wonder why Mr. Smith didn't just speak at these things. Oh well. After the assembly, I shakily walked to my home room. At our school, you get the same home room teacher all four years of high school. Thus, I am glad that my homeroom teacher is Miss Ral. I had her for homeroom and musical theatre for the past four years, and she is probably the nicest teacher in the school. Definitely miles better than getting someone like Mr. Bossard. He was my history teacher last year, and it wasn't exactly what I would call fun. I made it to Miss Ral's classroom. I was about to take the desk that I had pretty much claimed as mine since Freshman year when out of no where, some dude I didn't even recognize pushed me out of the way and took it. I stared at him in utter disbelief. It was some lanky kid with an undercut. "I was going to sit here…" I muttered. He looked at me with harsh, gold eyes. "Sucks for you. I guess you'll have to find another seat," he said. I could hear definite traces of a German accent. That didn't stop me from being able to hear the obvious snark dripping from his voice. I sighed and walked away. I wasn't exactly a huge fan of arguing, so I decided to sit in the back of the room, aka as far away from that jerk as possible. He must have been new, because I didn't recognize him. I rested my head on my desk and closed my eyes. I really didn't get what that kid's problem was. "Marco?" Miss Ral said. I looked up at her. She had a sweet smile on her face. "Yes, Miss Ral?" "Do you see that boy over there?" she asked, pointing to undercut. I could feel my patience withering. I stared at her with a blank expression. "Yeah? What about him?" I asked. "His family moved here from Germany not that long ago. I was hoping you'd be his friend. It's an odd request, but you're probably one of the friendliest people in this school," Miss Ral explained. I had to befriend someone that had just treated me like dirt. Just because he came from the land of bratwurst and Kinder eggs. I might as well have been walking dead on into the Autobahn. However, I couldn't just tell Miss Ral no. If all else failed, I could at least pawn him off on Reiner. I mustered up a weak smile. "No problem...I'll at least try to be friends with him," I accepted. Miss Ral was clearly delighted. She leaned in closer, cupping her hand around her mouth. "If you can show him a good time, I'll give you the lead in the Spring Musical," she offered, giving me a wink. Now THAT was an incentive. I grinned. She wrote a few numbers down on a piece of paper and gave them to me. I looked at it. "Is this our locker assignment?" I asked. She nodded. "I figure I might as well give it to you while I'm here," she stated. She turned around and walked away to give the other students their locker assignments. I jotted down the number and the combination in a notebook. Then I sighed. It was time to talk to der Fuhrer. I stood up and walked to his desk. I tried to give him the most welcoming smile I could. "Hi! I'm Marco Bodt! It looks like we're locker partners this year!" I greeted. He snickered and gave me a condescending smirk. "Friendly little fuck, aren't you?" he asked. My smile was quivering. I decided to ignore that statement. "Let's go find our locker," I stated, probably a little too aggressively. Undercut stood up from his seat. At least I was taller than him. That made me feel a little better. I lead the way to our locker. It was the same one I normally had. I handed him the paper with the combination, figuring that he might ease up if I show him respect. He viciously took it from my hand and started to enter the combo. He successfully opened it. "Damn, there isn't a lot of shelf space." "There never is," I commented, "It's really a huge pain. I'd advise carrying all of your stuff with you. That way you don't have to cram stuff in here and risk being late to class." "You're such a fucking nerd, Marcus." "It's Marco," I corrected. "That's what I said." "Whatever...anyway, what's your name? I don't think anyone's told me," I said. He glared at me. "Jean Kirstein. If you say it like 'John,' I will deck you. If you say 'gene,' I will beat the shit out of you," Jean said. "Do a lot of people get it wrong?" I asked. Jean rolled his eyes. "More often than you'd like to think. I guess it's easy to fuck up," he said, shutting the locker. I walked with him back to class. "I won't mess it up, Jean. So what part of Germany did you grow up in?" I asked. "Munich," he stated. "Sounds cool." "Not really," he dismissed. When we got back into class, I took the seat next to him. He took out his schedule. I leaned over to look at it. I wanted to know exactly how often I'd have to deal with him each day. "Can I see your schedule?" I asked. He tilted it in my direction. And much to my dismay, we had every class together. This would definitely be hell. Still, though, I kept the smile on my face. "Wow, buddy, did you steal my schedule? If not, we have every class together," I informed. He visibly grimaced. "Goodie for me…" he muttered. "I can show you to all of your classes!" I offered. He glanced at me. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever…" The bell rang to go to our first class. I started to lead him to math since that was our first period. I really had to wonder how much longer I could keep my patience with him. I knew Miss Ral wanted me to befriend Jean, but he could have at the very least co-operated with me. At the moment, I was only in it for the lead in the musical. It was for all the wrong reasons, but that wasn't to say Jean couldn't flip it to be for all the right reasons. It all depended on his attitude. And boy, did I wish his attitude would adjust soon. 


End file.
